Creating Christmas Cards

One of my favorite parts of the Christmas season is making cards and sending them to family and friends near and far. But with a recent move doubling the number of cards I want to send in the upcoming holiday season to nearly 80, I realized it was important to get an early start on my cards.

Each year I try to come up with a few different designs that I can produce quickly while still giving my family and friends a beautiful token so they'll know we're thinking of them. In this article, I'll showcase some of this year's designs and explain some of my choices.

One Stamp, Three Ways

The Scrapjazz.com forums, where challenges are hosted every month to get creative juices flowing, recently encouraged participants to use one stamp in three different ways. This is a great way for all card makers to get a lot of mileage out of a single purchase. I used a simple snowflake stamp to make three distinctly different cards.

In my first card, I used silver, white and navy ink to stamp snowflakes over a piece of blue cardstock to make a background image and stamped a Happy Holidays sentiment on top. I layered the blue cardstock on other pieces of cream and darker blue cardstock and tied it all together with a blue ribbon for a simple card that takes just moments to complete.

I upped the wow factor in my second card but still kept things simple. I used a VersaMark ink pad to stamp the same snowflake stamp over a piece of navy cardstock and then sprinkled silver embossing powder on top and used a heat embosser to set the powder. (If you're not familiar with heat embossing, check out these tutorials which explain the process.) I used a Merry Christmas stamp on a cut from a Tim Holtz Tattered Banners die and two silver brads to add my sentiment and then topped everything off with a diecut from a Sizzix snowman die, on which I used Copic Spicas to give a splash of sparkly color. Embossing looks amazing on cards but doesn't really increase your work significantly.

In my third card, I again pulled out my trusty snowflake die, but this time, I decided to make my card even more visually interesting. First, I cut a piece of dark blue cardstock so it was just a little smaller than my card and inked the edges with silver ink. Then, I adhered it to my card. Next, I cut a second piece to fit the inside cover of the card, but didn't adhere it yet. I simply lined it up with the cover of my card. Don't fold your card yet, either. Using my Cuttlebug, I carefully placed a mid-sized Spellbinders circle die to cut through the middle of the front of my card and the inner piece of cardstock. I then chose another circle die from the set that was two sizes smaller and cut another piece of light blue cardstock. On the smaller circle, I again used my VersaMark ink to stamp my snowflake image on either side and embossed both sides with silver powder. Using a paper piercer, I poked a hole at the top of my circle and pushed some cute Doodle Twine through and knotted the end. I adhered the twine to the inside cover of the card and covered the inside with the extra piece of cardstock. To finish it off, I used a Spellbinders Ribbon Banners die, stamped my Merry Christmas sentiment on the top and jazzed it up with some silver brads before attaching it to the front of the card. This was another card that took less than 30 minutes to create and creates a lot of visual interest for the recipient. The circle punched through the cover makes it a great card if you send family pictures or gift cards in your cards - the recipient will see it right away.

Have fun with punches

Punches or nesting dies are a great way to add some extra interest to your Christmas cards. In this card, I cut a piece of red cardstock a little smaller than my cream card and punched a series of small stars using this star nesting die. I then took a bigger version of the die and cut a larger star at the top of the cardstock. After wrapping a piece of ribbon from my stash around the cardstock, I attached it to the cream card and outlined the larger star using silver Stickles. Then, I stamped my Merry Christmas sentiment on another piece of cream cardstock and outlined my letters with more Stickles.

Widen your horizons with color

Everyone knows that red and green are traditional Christmas colors, but it can become tiring to make card after card in the same color. While I did my snowflake cards using shades of blue and silver, I wanted to walk on the wild side and really stretch my color choices. That prompted me to make both a pink and burgundy card and a card in various shades of purple.

My pink card is very similar to my initial snowflake card, except I used a tag cut from the Spellbinders Orchard Harvest Tags and Accents and stamped my Happy Holidays sentiment on top of that. I jazzed the tag up with pearls and used Stickles to add some sparkle.

With my purple card, however, I decided to explore some movement and made a penny slider or tilt card. The process is quite simple, but makes an interactive card that kids adore, and the purple color will delight any little girls in your life. In this case, I used a Bazzill chipboard snowflake, inked it purple and spritzed it with Glimmer Mist for a little extra sparkle. I finished off the card by stamping my sentiment.

Ditch your stamps

Don't feel like you have to follow any rules in card-making - some of my favorite cards don't have any stamping at all, like my final card. This was easily the simplest card I made. Simply cut a piece of red cardstock big enough to cover the front of your card and adhere, then cut a thin strip of black cardstock that will go across the width of the card and adhere it near the bottom of your card. This forms Santa's suit and belt. Then, get three buttons or brads - I used some by Graphic 45 that I had kicking around - and place them on top of the belt. I used gold Stickles to create a belt buckle. Finally, I grabbed a cotton ball from my makeup case and pulled it apart to create a thin poof and adhered it to the bottom of the card to represent the edge of Santa's suit. In total, this card took me less than 10 minutes to make.

I hope you'll find some inspiration in my designs for 2012 and will use some of these ideas to make beautiful creations for your family and friends this Christmas.